Skillet pasta stands the usual pasta cooking method on its head by cooking it right in the pan. It works well with spelt pasta shapes like the rotini we used, or another twisted pasta. We particularly like somewhat bitter greens like mustard or dandelions in it, which make a nice contrast to the woody shiitakes and meaty chunks of pancetta.

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the pancetta and cook until it’s lightly browned, about 2 minutes.

Add shiitakes and toss in the pan until well coated with oil. Sauté for about 5 minutes more, stirring often, until the mushrooms are brown and the pancetta has rendered most of its fat.

Add serrano chile and shallot. Cook until just softened, about 1 minute. Take the pan off the heat and transfer the contents to a bowl.

Put the stock into the saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add the spelt rotini. Stir the pasta occasionally and cook until it’s a little less than al dente. Add the greens to the skillet.

Cook for about another minute, then then stir in pancetta mixture, including all the fat that was rendered from the pancetta.

Continue cooking until the pasta is al dente, the greens are wilted, and most of the liquid has been absorbed into the pasta and made a creamy sauce. If the liquid has evaporated before the pasta is quite al dente, add water a teaspoon at a time.

Remove the pan from the stove, stir in lemon juice and drizzle with a little extra-virgin olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Spelt Summer Pasta With Tomatoes And Chickpeas is an easy pasta dish with an uncooked sauce for a warm summer night. You can also serve this cold the next day for lunch.

Spelt Summer Pasta With Tomatoes And Chickpeas

Total time: about 30 minutesServes 4

Ingredients:

1 lb/450 g ripe, fresh tomatoes, peeled if desired and finely chopped

1 plump garlic clove, minced

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

1 tablespoon slivered or chopped fresh basil

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 15 oz/330 g can chick peas, drained and rinsed

1 lb/450 g spelt rotini or penne

¼ cup crumbled feta or freshly grated Parmesan (more to taste)

Instructions:

Combine all the ingredients except the chickpeas in a wide bowl. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes, then add the chick peas and stir together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Boil a large pot of water while the “sauce” develops its flavors. Salt the water well and add the pasta. Cook the pasta al dente, drain, and toss with the tomato and chick pea mixture. Sprinkle the feta or parmesan on top, and serve.

Greek Jewish cooking has a very long history since Jews have lived in Greece since Hellenistic times. In the 16th century, many thousands of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal moved to the Ottoman Empire. Many of them settled in Greece where they mingled with the Jewish communities who were already there. This makes Greek Jewish cooking particularly varied, eclectic, and altogether fascinating. Try these Jewish Meat Croquettes from Greece made with ground beef and matzo meal for a weeknight meal. Make your own spelt matzo meal from our spelt matzo recipe or order spelt matzo online. To make matzo meal, break up matzos and whizz them in the food processor.

We keep discovering varieties of Jewish cooking from all over Europe, Africa, and Asia. If you are interested in Jewish cooking, do yourself a favor and get a copy of The Cookbook of the Jews of Greece by Nicholas Stavroulakis.

Jewish Meat Croquettes from Greece with Spelt Matzo Meal

Prep Time: 10 minutesCook time: 20 minutesAbout 20 croquettes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs/680 grams ground beef

1 medium onion finely chopped

2 eggs beaten

1/4 cup/65 grams spelt matzo meal

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 tablespoons chopped parsley and mint

Salt and Pepper

Olive oil for frying

Raw onion rings, parsley, and lemon juice for garnish

Instructions:

Mix the beef, onion, eggs, spelt matzo meal, vinegar, 1 tbsp olive oil, vinegar, parsley and mint together in a large bowl and knead them thoroughly with your hands

Pat egg-sized pieces of the mixture into oblong shapes and set on a plate

Fry the croquettes in 4 tablespoons olive oil, turning them every couple of minutes so they’re well browned all over

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We adapted these saffron spelt gnocchi from a traditional Sardinian dumpling made from semolina flour flavored with saffron called malreddus. Traditionally, saffron was cheaper in Sardinia than eggs, so they used it to give the dumplings a nice golden color and the flavor of saffron.

We enjoyed ours tossed in a tomato sauce enriched with butter. They would also go well with a meat ragu. Parmesan or pecorino romano cheese is appropriate.

Ingredients

Instructions

Boil the water. Put the saffron in a small bowl, pour boiling water over, and let the saffron steep for 10 minutes

Combine the white spelt flour, salt, and olive oil in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook

Strain the saffron water through a fine-mesh strainer placed over the large bowl. Press the saffron threads with your fingers to extract as much flavor as possible, then discard them.

Knead by hand or in the stand mixer on medium speed until the dough comes together and is very smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap and let it rest for an hour at room temperature.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; dust well with more white spelt flour

If the dough is at all sticky, knead in more white spelt flour 1 tsp at a time

Put some white spelt flour on a plate. Cut off a chunk of dough about the width of two fingers with a knife or a bench scraper. Rewrap the rest to keep it from drying out. Coat the chunk by lightly rolling it in the white spelt flour on the plate. Roll it into a log about 1/ 4 in (6 mm) in diameter with your hands on an unfloured work surface. Cut the log into 1/ 2-in (12-mm) pieces.

Lightly press each piece against a gnocchi board or the back of a fork with the side of your thumb. Curl the dough slightly around your thumb so the smooth side is indented a bit. Lay each piece ridged side up on the floured parchment paper. Make sure they don’t touch so they don’t stick together. Repeat until you’ve used all the dough.

Storage

If you don’t want to cook the dumplings immediately, cover the baking sheets with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 2 days. Or freeze some or all of them on the baking sheets and transfer to an airtight container once they’re frozen. Use within 1 month. You don’t need to thaw them before cooking.

Cooking

Generously salt a large pot of water and bring to a simmer on medium-high heat. Put the saffron spelt gnocchi in and simmer until they float to the surface, 1 to 3 minutes. Keep simmering them for 1 to 2 minutes more, until slightly al dente, then scoop them out right away with a slotted spoon or pasta scoop and toss them with whatever sauce you’re using. Serve immediately, passing parmesan or pecorino romano cheese.

These spelt Spanish shrimp pancakes come from Andalusia in the south of Spain. In spite of the name (Tortillas de camarones), they’re are not at all like the familiar Mexican corn tortillas. Instead, these are crisp fried pancakes made with a combination of chick pea and white spelt flours beaten together with water into a thin batter. Traditionally, the dish was made with tiny Mediterranean shrimp, too small to peel. They’re not available this far away from southern Spain, so the recipe uses a mixture of regular shrimp cut up and some dried shrimp (available in Asian markets) for a little salty crunch.

They fry up beautifully, and are delicious either hot or at room temperature. In either case, drink a nice glass of dry manzanilla sherry with the tortillas.

“Spanish Shrimp Pancakes/Tortillas De Camarones”

Prep Time: 4 hoursCook time: 20 mins hourServes 4-6

Ingredients:

1 lb/400 gm of shelled shrimp diced into 1/4 in/1 cm cubes

1 cup plus 2 tbsp/100 gm chickepea flour

4/5 cup/100 gm white spelt flour

1.75 oz/50 gm of dried shrimp, finely ground

5 scallions, finely sliced

4 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Water

Salt and pepper

Olive oil for frying

Instructions:

Mix the chick pea and white spelt flours together. Slowly add enough water to produce a batter as thick as heavy cream. Stir in 1/4 tsp of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Rest for four hours. The batter will thicken in this period.

Add the fresh and dried shrimp, the scallions, and the parsley and mix well. The mixture should be about 90% shrimp, scallions, and parsley; the batter is there to hold them together.

Add oil to depth of 1/2 inch/2 cm to a large frying pan. Heat the oil to frying temperature and fry a teaspoon of the batter to check the seasoning.

Fry the rest of the tortillas to a golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Drain on a rack over paper towels.

Ingredients:

2 ounces Pecorino Romano cheese (about 1 cup; 55g), very finely grated on a Microplane or the smallest holes of a box grater, plus more for serving

Instructions:

Cook 3 tablespoons of olive oil and about a teaspoon of black pepper in a medium skillet over medium-low heat until ingredients are fragrant and pepper is barely starting to sizzle, about 1 minute. Set aside.

Place spelt spaghetti in a large skillet and cover with water. Season with a small pinch of salt, then bring to a boil over high heat, prodding spaghetti occasionally with a fork or wooden spoon to prevent it from clumping. Cook until spaghetti is al dente (typically about 1 minute less than the package recommends). Transfer 2 to 3 tablespoons of pasta cooking water to the skillet with the olive oil/pepper mixture. Stir in butter. Using tongs, lift spaghetti and transfer it to the oil/butter mixture.

Add cheese and remaining tablespoon olive oil to the skillet and stir with a fork until cheese is completely melted. Add a few more tablespoons of pasta water to the skillet to adjust consistency, reheating as necessary until the sauce is creamy and coats each strand of the spelt spaghetti. Season to taste with salt and more black pepper. Serve immediately, passing extra grated cheese and black pepper at the table.

Green garlic is plentiful at our local farmer’s market right now, so we were happy to find Alice Walker’s recipe for spaghetti with green garlic. VitaSpelt Spelt Spaghetti works well for this dish. You could make this with whole spelt spaghetti; the sauce is robust enough to stand up to the chewier, more strongly flavored pasta.

Note the technique of reserving some pasta cooking water to make the sauce. The starch in the cooking water helps to emulsify the sauce so it coats the pasta better.

Spelt Spaghetti with Green Garlic

Prep Time: 10 minutesCook time: 15 minutesServes 4

Ingredients

Salt

1 pound spelt spaghetti

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 heads green garlic (or 4 cloves regular garlic), thinly sliced

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

small pinch of red pepper flakes

Instructions

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and add the spelt spaghetti. Cook until al dente, testing it often (spelt spaghetti cooks a little faster than regular pasta). Reserve 1 cup of the pasta cooking water before draining.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large (3-quart) saucepan over medium heat until shimmering. Add the garlic, parsley, red pepper flakes, and 1/4 cup of water. Cover and cook the mixture very slowly, stirring occasionally, until soft. Don’t let the onion caramelize too much; add a little water if necessary.

Add the cooked, drained spelt spaghetti to the garlic mixture. Toss well to combine. Add some of your reserved pasta cooking water if necessary to bring the dish to a creamy consistency. Chop a couple of tablespoons of the green garlic scapes and garnish the spaghetti. Drizzle on a little more extra virgin olive oil and serve.

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White spelt flour makes beautiful spelt egg pasta. If you’ve never made fresh pasta before, relax; it’s really quite easy, especially if you use a good quality Italian pasta machine like the Imperia we use at our house.

The Imperia comes with a cutter for making fettuccine and fresh egg spaghetti. Other attachments are available for making other fresh pasta shapes. Once you’ve made your dough and rolled it with the machine, it’s not hard to cut thicker noodles like pappardelle with a knife as long as you’re careful to flour the rolled sheets well before you roll them so they don’t stick together. Be sure to try maltagliati, which are odd shapes like trapezoids and triangles that you cut by hand out of a flat sheet, too.

Spelt Egg Pasta

Prep Time: About 1 hour4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups/290 grams white spelt flour, more as needed

¾ teaspoon/3 grams kosher salt

2 whole large eggs

3 egg yolks

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, more as needed

Instructions:

Put the white spelt flour and salt in a food processor with the metal blade and pulse a few times to mix.

Add eggs, yolks and oil and process until the dough comes together. If dough looks dry, add another teaspoon olive oil. If dough looks wet, add a little spelt flour until dough is tacky and elastic.

Turn the dough out on a clean work surface. Knead until very smooth.

Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest on the counter. You can also put it into the refrigerator overnight.

Cut dough into 4 pieces and keep them covered with plastic wrap or a dish towel. Roll one piece of dough out into a sheet with the pasta machine at the widest setting. Fold the sheet in thirds like a letter and pass it through the machine twice more at the widest setting.

Reduce the setting by 1, and repeat rolling and folding the dough, passing it through the machine 2 or 3 times before going to the next setting. For pappardelle and fettuccine, stop rolling when the dough is about 1 or 2 settings wider than the thinnest one on your roller. When you are done rolling the pasta sheets, hang them on the drying rack until you’re ready to cut them.

For pappardelle, flour a sheet of pasta, roll it carefully so it doesn’t stick, and cut 1-inch-wide strips with a sharp knife. Use the fettucine cutter on the pasta machine for fettucine. Dry the cut spelt egg pasta on a drying rack, or lay flat on a floured sheet tray. If you lay it flat, be sure to sprinkle it with more flour before putting more cut pasta on top of it.

A rich, delicious dish of spelt maltagliati (fresh pasta cut into irregular shapes) for late spring or early summer when the fava beans come in. Make your spelt egg pasta, and instead of cutting the sheets of dough with the pasta machine’s cutter attachment, lay them flat on a floured surface and cut them into trapezoids, triangles, and other simple geometrical figures: Maltagliati means badly cut, so have fun messing up!

To prepare the favas, shell them, drop them into boiling water and cook for a couple of minutes, then slip the skins off them.

Instructions:

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and hot red pepper. Sauté slowly about 6 minutes, until onion is translucent. Add sausages and break them up with a fork or wooden spoon. Sauté about 3 minutes, until the meat is nicely browned. Add the wine and simmer about 1 minute, incorporating the browned bits. Add the tomatoes and fave beans; sauté until tomatoes soften, about 5 minutes. Season sauce with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, cook spelt maltagliati in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta cooking liquid. Return pasta to same pot.

This easy spelt pizza dough makes 4 10″ pizzas. It’s pleasant to work with, freezes well, and tastes great. As we are a two person household, we usually freeze two of the dough balls for later and have the makings for an easy pizza party the next week.

Easy Spelt Pizza Dough

Prep Time: 20 minutesDough for 4 10″ pizzas

Ingredients

2 teaspoons/5 grams dry active yeast

4 ½ cups/625 grams white spelt flour, plus extra for dusting

2 teaspoons/5 grams kosher salt

2 tablespoons/30 milliliters olive oil

Instructions

Put 1 3/4 cups/420 milliliters lukewarm water in a mixing bowl (use a stand mixer or food processor if you prefer). Sprinkle yeast over water and let dissolve, about 2 minutes.

Add spelt flour, salt and olive oil and mix well until flour is incorporated and dough forms, about 5 minutes. It may look a little rough or pockmarked.

Wrap dough pieces individually in resealable zipper bags and refrigerate for several hours or, for best results, overnight; you can also freeze it for future use. (You can skip this rise in the refrigerator and use the dough right away, but this cool, slow rise makes it easier to stretch and gives the pizza a crisper texture and more nuanced flavor.)

To use dough, form each piece into a smooth, firm ball, and place on a flour-dusted or parchment-lined baking sheet. (If you froze the dough, leave it at room temperature for several hours first, or defrost overnight in the refrigerator.) Flour lightly, cover loosely with plastic wrap and top with a kitchen towel. Leave to rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 30 minutes. Each dough ball with make a 10-inch diameter pizza.